Colorado’s Frida Formann drives to the hoop against UCLA at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. (University of Colorado Athletics)
Heading into the final week of the regular season, the picture of the Pac-12 standings in women’s basketball isn’t clear.
But for the Colorado Buffaloes, it is. The crystal clear task in front of the Buffs this week is this: Just win.
There’s no need for the 13th-ranked Buffs (20-7, 10-6 Pac-12) to worry about postseason seeding after they were dealt their fourth straight loss on Monday night in Los Angeles, 53-45 against No. 8 UCLA.
Of course, the Buffs are hoping to find a way into a top-four seed for next week’s Pac-12 tournament, but the main priority is to regroup against Washington on Thursday (7 p.m.) and Washington State on Saturday (1 p.m.). Both games are on the Pac-12 Network.
This season began with CU hoping to win the Pac-12 championship. The regular season comes to a close this week with the Buffs simply aiming to find the win column again.
No. 4 Stanford (13-3 in conference) has a two-game lead on the field and needs to win only one of its last two – at No. 11 Oregon State (11-5) and at last-place Oregon (2-14) to secure the outright title and the No. 1 seed for the Pac-12 tournament.
Beyond the Cardinal, it gets interesting in the fight the next three spots and the first-round byes in Las Vegas that come with top-four seeds.
Tied for second at 11-5 in conference games is Oregon State, UCLA and No. 7 USC. A game back, at 10-6, are the Buffs and No. 18 Utah. There’s a scenario in which that group winds up in a five-way tie for second place.
Mathematically, the Buffs could finish as high as second, but they can’t finish lower than sixth. Climbing as high as No. 2 is nearly impossible for the Buffs, however. They lose out on tie-breakers with OSU, UCLA and USC after going 1-5 against that group this season.
A look at the scenarios and possibilities for CU this week:
No. 2 seed: In addition to sweeping the Washington schools, CU would need OSU, UCLA and USC to all get swept this weekend. OSU hosts the Bay Area schools while UCLA and USC visit the Arizona schools.
No. 3 seed: Along with sweeping the Washington schools, two of the three ahead of the Buffs (OSU, UCLA and USC) would need to get swept this weekend.
No. 4 seed: To get this seed, CU needs to sweep the Washington schools and hope just one of the other three gets swept. Oregon State has the toughest road of those three, facing Stanford and California, but the Beavers do play at home.
No. 5 seed: This is probably the most likely landing spot for CU at this point. If the Buffs sweep the weekend and the trio ahead of them all wins at least once, this is CU’s spot. Even if they finish tied for fifth with Utah, the Buffs have the tie-breaker over the Utes.
No. 6 seed: If the Buffs go 1-1 or 0-2 this weekend and slip behind Utah, they’ll land in sixth place.
As for that potential five-way tie for second place, that wouldn’t favor the Buffs. The first tie-breaker in that scenario is head-to-head among the group and CU has the worst mark (2-6) in that case. The Buffs likely wind up as the No. 5 seed in that situation.
Regardless, the Buffs have to use the disappointment of the four-game skid to fuel them this week.
“I’m sure everybody’s pretty frustrated,” head coach JR Payne said after Monday’s loss to UCLA. “You couldn’t not be, but that’s not a bad thing. You know, if it spurs you to work a little bit harder or to tinker a little bit more, or sort of be self-reflective on ways that individually we can be better, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”